CLEVELAND, Ohio -- NASA Glenn Research Center in Brook Park near the Cleveland Hopkins International Airport helps power airplanes, spaceships and prosperity. One of 10 NASA centers around the country, Glenn plays a big role in the world's science and the region's economy.

Last year, when the center was celebrating its 75th anniversary, U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Toledo told The Plain Dealer, "It would be almost impossible to overstate NASA Glenn's importance to northern Ohio. It is home to some of the world's top scientists and engineers who are doing path-breaking work [and] encouraging the private sector to take up these advances and turn them into business opportunities."

NASA Glenn has appeared in many Plain Dealer pages over the newspaper's 175 years.

Drawn by local strengths in aviation, the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics started building a branch in 1941 at what's now Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Soon the center was testing B-29s and other warplanes.

In 1958, NACA became the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Ohio astronaut and future U.S. Senator John Glenn took plunges here that simulated zero gravity. In 1999, the NASA Lewis Research Center was renamed for him.

Today, NASA Glenn has about 150 buildings. A master plan calls for about $255 million in construction and renovations over the next few years. Meanwhile, the center is helping to develop and test spacecraft meant to reach Mars and beyond.

Glenn's current director, former astronaut Janet Kavandi, says, "We are very fortunate to have such a variety of skills and expertise here in Cleveland, and some of the greatest minds of NASA working on the toughest problems to support aeronautics and space exploration."

Glenn's scientists have earned 726 patents and many honors, including an Emmy for broadcast technology.

"Almost every aircraft and spacecraft today contains Glenn technology," Jim Free, then the center's director, said in the 2016 book, "Within Reach: Celebrating 75 Years of NASA Glenn Research Center."

Glenn is bringing $654 million in federal funds to town this year, much of it for 1,534 civil servants and 1,611 contract workers at the center's 350-acre Lewis Field in Brook Park and its 6,400-acre Plum Brook Station testing grounds in Perkins Township, near Sandusky. But the benefits spread far beyond those sites.

According to a study by Cleveland State University's Center for Economic Opportunities, Glenn enabled $1.253 billion of business earnings in Northeast Ohio and another $129 million elsewhere in the state. The study said Glenn also spurred 3,500 regional jobs off campus through grants, contracts and other arrangements.

Glenn contracts with businesses, universities, even the Cleveland Clinic, which has helped design fitness equipment for astronauts in space. The center also develops technology used in computers, communications and much more. Since 1988, Glenn has signed 69 license agreements for commercial spinoffs.

What's more, the center helps locals learn. It runs programs for students and has a visitor center inside the Great Lakes Science Center downtown.

Said Rep. Kaptur, "I look forward to many more years of extraordinary discovery and innovation that reaches out from NASA Glenn to better the lives of people in our communities."